Nicole I agree. I can hear the trains from my home during the day and they mostly they blow their whistles because people try to beat the train when the red lights are flashing because they don't want to wait for the train to pass. Do I blame the engineers on the train for blowing whistles, NO, but I do blame the people that are to much in a rush to wait. I have had people fly around me when the lights were flashing but the train didn't get there yet. One day someone is going to get hit by the train especially if they aren't allowed to blow their horns.

I think it is a safety requirement established by the Federal Government for a train to sound its horn at a crossing.

I grew up by St Gabriel and listened to the motorcycles going up and down Grove Rd, then MRTS utilizing the same road to reach the patients in the boro. Now I live in West Mifflin under the flight path for LifeFlight and also hear the trains traveling down Streets Run. If you and your family cant adapt MOVE!

More train traffic isn't a sign that the economy is growing. More companies are switching to shipping by trains because it is much cheaper than shipping over the road, as gas and diesel keep on going up (thanks to obama) and companies are trying to move products the cheapest way so that they don't have to increase the price of products.

Smitty, Excellent questions. When I talked to the Burough Manager if a petition should be taken up of the surrounding residents, he said that it would not be necessary, that the problem alone is more than legitimate to stand on its own (I'm paraphrasing that last part). According to Federal Law, a small committee of burough officials, law enforcement and representatives of the company that own the tracks would need to be formed to review the intersection for several factors, including the regular volume of vehicle & pedestrian traffice, history of accidents at the intersection involving trains (if any), lines of sight and any additional engineering that would be needed to install the proper automated safety measurements, such as automatic arms to accompany the signal lights that are already installed at the intersection. Once it has been decided that the intersection can qualify as part of a quiet zone (provided that this actually happens), the modifications are installed and the burough then submits back that all requirements have been satisfied. Once this is approved, the whistles go silent through the zone. I would also agree with you that automatic arms would be even more safe than the whistles themselves. The dollar amount, once determined, would seemingly be split by the two buroughs...this is good news in my opinion; rather than the brunt of the cost being laid on one burough, both share in the costs as it affects residents of both.

General Costs of Safety Measures

Public authorities are responsible for the cost of preliminary engineering, construction, maintenance, and replacement of active warning devices or their components installed at crossings to meet quiet zone standards. Public authorities will be required to enter into a contractual agreement guaranteeing reimbursement to the railroad thirty days after railroad work is completed. Costs to install safety measures vary depending on individual projects. Below are examples of costs:

•Four-Quadrant Gate Systems - $300,000 to $500,000
•Basic Active Warning System* - $185,000 to $400,000
•Basic Inter-Connect - $5,000 to $15,000
•Annual Maintenance - $4,000 to $10,000

Thanks for the info, Jim. I assume most people, like me, will look at it and be both confused by what those things are, and also suprised at how expensive to install. So, I read up a little online, and also put into context.
My cursory understanding is that the most expensive item (the "Four Quadrant Gate System") may be required there -- though I wonder if the cost of installing such a system might be mitigated by the fact that there is already a system in place -- maybe upgrading what we have isn't as expensive as starting from scratch?
But assuming that's not the case, Installation costs in the worst-case-scenario (most expensive) of $300,000 to $500,000 spread out per person among the 35,000 residents of both Baldwin Borough (20,000) and Whitehall (15,000) {numbers from the Borough websites}, would be $8.77 to $14.29 per person (guessing an average of 3 people per household would be approx $26.31 to $45 average per household one-time expense) -- perhaps not insurmountable, but at least likely to raise more debate. (Maybe our boroughs already have these funds in their budgets so that individuals wouldn't feel the pinch?) The annual maintenance costs are negligible at only 11 to 29 cents per person.
Also discovered another way to get a Quiet Zone without the expense of installing crossing arms may be to block off McAnulty Road there. After all, Curry Road is just a short hop from there. See: http://www.bnsf.com/communities/faqs/train-horns/

I agree there, people leave their dogs out all night chained to dog houses and they bark all night. Call the police and they bring the dog in for the night but the next night they are back barking all night. We keep a radio on in the bathroom so we don't have to listen to our neighbors with barking dogs.

Railroads are governed by the Federal Railroad Administration, so if Baldwin, Whitehall or Mr. Bowman want changes, they need to start with the FRA. If the railroad alters the FRA rules, and they are observed by a FRA Inspector violating those rules, they will be fined. Locomotive horns are for the public's protection, thats why they are so loud and they are required to sound them at highway crossings i na prescribed fashion. This rail line has been in existance for over 100 years and if Mr. Bowman doesn't want the noise that has been a apart of that area, for the past 95 years, he needs to relocate to the country where the deer & antelope play. This is utterly ridiculous.

If a train is travelling 45 miles an hour and is 1/4 mile away. How many people does it wake when the horn blows 96 decibels? (Sorry I couldn't resist).

It is a crazy fight because for anything to happen you would have to go to the Federal Railroad Administration who governs that rule. What about when the first fatal incident happens due to a train going through a crossing and the motorist never heard it coming all because a homeowner who moved next to the train tracks that have been there longer than the house , Who are you going to run to and blame!

Thanks for the catch. Changed to "horns."

While you do not like their comments, or in the direct the way in which they were stated, you in turn must understand how your complaint seems to a lot of people. You bought a home in sight of train tracks near an intersection and want the trains to remain silent. I also do not think you will get much support in the future if the cost for putting in quiet zone safety measures goes into six figures. You state that it is merely putting in crossing arms. You are not the FRA expert who may require a horn be sounded in the direction of oncoming traffic at the intersection (instead of from the train). Or, bells could be required to signal when the arm comes down. Everything costs a lot these days and I really do not think I should have to pay for railroad crossing safety measures to prevent you from hearing a train horn. That's just the way it is.

People will get annoyed and upset because your proposing to spend our hard owned tax payer dollars on a problem you created by moving in a location effected by train noise. Those tracks have been there longer than your house.

Here's an idea, If the borough would approve the Jean Dr crossing what about all the other crossings on Streets Run Road, heck lets just do every crossing in the borough and spend 3 Millions in tax money because there's a lot more houses next to different crossings in this borough! It wouldn't be fair just to do one so do them all.

Here is a town in Ohio that spent $76,000 for a quiet zone.

http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/16357280/holland-becomes-railroad-quiet-zone

THEY ALSO HAD 95 TRAINS A DAY ON THAT LINE!!!

I could think of 1000 ways better to spend tax payers money.

Plus once the construction on the Curry Hollow Bridge is done, traffic on those tracks will reduce back to normal because the tracks underneath that bridge are out of service due to the construction above and all AVR trains are re-routed through that area.

people run gates and lights all the time and wonder why they get hit. that, in a nutshell is why they need to blow the horn.

to follow your logic, maybe we should ban traffic lights so you don't have to look at stopped cars.

I agree with you, Jim: anyone who suggests you are proposing anything that would increase danger has entirely misunderstood.
Others, who's objection is based on spending money, are not wrong to be concerned about cost, though mostly they seem to be having a knee-jerk reaction without full consideration of whatever the facts may turn out to be (how much money and over what period of time, and how many families are affected by the noise).
Though I entirely disagree with D.Ren's tone and conclusions (ie, do nothing and to hell with you) he/she raised two points which should be considered. What other areas in the Baldwin and Whitehall Boroughs, if any, have the same problem? (He/she mentioned Streets Run: Are there alot of residents there losing sleep every night for lack of crossing arms? If so, let's look at it -- instead of just saying to hell with them, let's see if it can be reasonably fixed!)
But the most helpful thing D.Ren said was that the increased rail traffic is a temporary problem that will be resolved when construction on the Curry Hollow Bridge is completed. Well, if that's so, then that would be good to know.
You seem like a reasonable guy with a reasonable concern, Jim, and I feel bad that so many people are so rude and angry and uncaring for your plight, and I think if they would look at a map they'd see it's not just you. I also think they would hope for better consideration if it was their families losing sleep every night.

Let's also note that the train noise severly cripples the marketability of our area to potential residents. >>>

Do you have any evidence showing this? I 'm thinking of the riverfront areas and how popular and valuable they are, despite having trains running there.

To NEI12Ukid: I thought you were making a good point about how we all chip in with school taxes to pay for education even if we don't have kids in school, until you contradicted it with your comment about limiting the assessment (to pay for the railroad crossing arms) to only those people who live near the tracks. Agree with you that we should know exactly what it would cost to fix the noise problem (and I would add that we should have the problem quantified as part of the process, as well as considering other, possibly less expensive solutions) before deciding how or if to proceed, but disagree that the cost of fixing the problem should be born only by the relatively few -- even bearing in mind that "relatively few" can still mean alot of people. These people are part of our community, and I don't think it's frivolous for them to want to sleep at night.

The school taxes comment was clearly an aside, and the point was that we all pay enough taxes as it is.
Schools/education benefit the entire community/country.
Making one neighborhood quieter benefits only those neighbors. Not really comparable, and I was not comparing the two and stated that it's another subject.

NE12Ukid, marketability is not at all the same thing as property value. There are a lot of "given and take" variables when looking at the marketability of properties; mostly having to do with the appeal of an area, not necessarily its assessed value. We do not live on a main throughway, we live in a neighborhood on a dead-end street. This does not make our property more valuable, but it does make it more marketable to those looking for that type of living. Round-the-clock horn blowing 60 feet from our backdoor as it has become (again, not how it used to be) is a huge detriment to the marketability of our immediate area, though it does not at all decrease our property value. Even if we wanted to move away from the tracks due to this increase in noise polution, it would be all the more difficult to sell our home; when someone asks about the train noise at the end of our property (as was our first question when first looking at it for purchase), we can no longer say "light and scattered". We would have to say, "its a new and crippling issue for a once peaceful life and the very reason we are moving." My guess is that they pass over our house and move on to the next option. So where does that leave us? To those that say, "If you don't like it, Move!", it is easy to sit behind a keyboard and wax such fatuity to perfect strangers, but the reality of the idea is far easier said than done given what the situation has now become by no fault of our own.

So Jim, you are saying you have no idea how much this improvement to your home would cost the rest of us, right?

...and we still have no evidence as to the "crippling" of the marketability, correct?
Just opinion, right?

ML- If you live in the Baldwin/Whitehall all your life then you most certainly paid for your child education at the school. Then again your the one that wanted a rebate because you don't have students in the school but we all had to pay for when your children were in school.

I'm guessing the answer to this obviously cynical question would be "yes", but the better question would be to ask if they could afford to bear the brunt of it on their own? Or to ask yourself how you would feel if the roles were reversed.

Reversed? You mean the rest of us pay for making THEIR neighborhood quieter? Nah, I did not choose to live near tracks, but I do hear trains, and it doesn't bother me enough to want to pay more in taxes to quiet them. As I stated originally, it makes me smile.

NE12Ukid, to answer your latest comments, one of which was already answered in a comment above by "BD", a four-arm system would cost between 300K-500K, we would fall on the lesser side as the signal lights are already installed there. This would be an upgrade to the current system and not a fully new installation. A safe, yet rough estimate would say approx. 150K-200K per burough for the install, with a calculated $0.11/per resident (of both Baldwin and Whitehall) in maintenance fees. That's 11 cents, not dollars mind you, as already answered by "Smitty Jones" in a past comment as well.

To answer your second and equally snidely-toned question: This 2001 study http://fastracks01.thenewpush.com/media/uploads/gl/The_effect_of_Rail_Transit_on_Property_Values_Summary_of_Studies1.pdf shows suggests as much as a 20% decrease in property values for homes that are within 400 feet of a train right-of-way (such as McAnulty and Jean). This particular article does not address your exact question, but shows that research has indeed been carried out and published for studies in other cities. The more direct answer to your question can be found here in a 2012 publication: http://daily.sightline.org/2012/06/06/freight-rail-and-property-values/ which specifically studies how an increase in "rail density" such as what we are experiencing, can negatively impact home values in the immediate area as much as - 7%. So yes, this is a real thing, not just opinion.

i am to assume then, that gov't and the railroad should spare no expense to appease a small minority of people who complain? if the railroad has been there longer than anybody can remember, with no complaints until now, is the railroad the problem?

for what it's worth, i live next to a far busier line than yours. most people learn to sleep through the trains.

You seem to be missing the point that the train traffic was never a problem until this past year. Who cares if the tracks have been there for a thousand years or 2 years. If the significantly increased traffic has become a problem with round-the-clock horns, there-in lies the problem. It has nothing to do with how long the tracks have been there. I grew up three blocks away from a railway...never bothered me growing up. I enjoyed the traffic on this trck, too, when we bought the home as well as it was something I am MORE than used to and actually enjoy...but what we are experiencing in the here and now is an entirely different monster. Again, I've been here over half a decade, never opened my mouth about it until now, because there was no reason until now. People are acting like we moved in yesterday and decided we didn't like the train noise, which yes, would be an absurd gripe, but that is not the case...and again, I'm not the only one here who wants this to happen...

Jim, I was never disagreeing with your idea, crossing arms does make more sense and if you can get the borough to back you and accomplish your goal, good for you, Yes your family deserves uninterrupted sleep as a tax paying citizen. My point is that if I were to knowingly move next to a train track that I am going to expect noise at all hours of the day and night, I personally would hate to live next to a train track. Lets say I were to move right next door to the fire station in Baldwin and then go to the borough to ban the whistle all together, wouldn't you ask me the same question "Why would you move there and then complain fully knowing where you moving next to?"

D. Ren, thanks for your support. This situation, at first glance, does beg the more than obvious question of "why did we move here in the first place if we didn't want the train noise?" Well, if people would read the article more carefully, they would see that the sixth paragraph states:
"Bowman said, when he bought his home on Jean in May 2007, "The traffic on this railroad was extremely light. There were maybe two or three trains a week. It wasn't an issue five-and-a-half years ago."

The very first question we asked when we first saw the house (looking to buy) was about the train activity. We were told how light and infrequent the traffic and resulting horn-blowing was and that this is the way it had been for a long time. As the article mentions, it was only a few times a week, mostly on a weekend that we would hear it. We bought the house and experienced the very same thing for ourselves. The article also mentions that we have been here now for 5 1/2 years. I'm only taking issue with it now because the traffic has significantly increased in the past year and is completely disrupting what we, as a neighborhood, not just ourselves, have come to know. We moved next to a track with light, infrequent traffic. That is not the case anymore; much difficulty to those who try to sell their home in an effort to move if that is what they decide to do. I'm trying to make the situation better for everyone, regardless if they want to stay or eventually move desipite the reason.

True, JimB, I was just posing the question as to if it would even be a possiblitiy, and if so, would this alter the position of the neighbors in that area.

JimB - Why don't you contact the railroad yourself? Tell them your problem and ask them for a possible solution. Why bother local government with this until you find out for yourself if the railroad company can work with you? you have done little other than check the web to see what other communities have done at a big cost to the local communities involved. Anybody could have done that much. Make some calls yourself. If my kids were making the fuss that you claim, I sure would not be expecting local politicians to move quickly to solve my problem. Especially if more than one government is involved.

JimB because they are seeing people flying over the train tracks to beat the train and have to sound the horns when that happens. People need to stop when they see the flashing red lights but don't. Don't blame the train engineers or the borough, blame the people that are in too much of a rush to get no where.